My heart pounded, and my hands trembled. I could barely unlock my phone.
Once it was unlocked, I opened Bai An's social media profile and saw his picture.
That was right—the person in the picture on that sheet of paper was Bai An!
I was excited, but when I looked again, his obituary was still posted on his profile.
He was still dead.
I froze.
Hadn't Bai An been killed by that compass guy, using Shen Wangshu?
Or had the dream been interrupted, and the compass guy and Shen Wangshu actually survived?
I was about to call Wu Ling when my phone rang. It was her calling me.
"Wu Ling!" I cried.
On the other end, Wu Ling seemed to swallow the words she'd been about to say. "What happened?"
I didn't even ask her what was going on. I went straight into describing the dream.
"Oh... As for Shen Wangshu, we did look into her case afterward. Her house caught fire, and the police investigation concluded it was arson. She had set the fire and killed herself and her father. The case was closed as a suicide. Maybe they didn't investigate any further... Shen Wangshu was already mentally unwell at the time. Her coworkers, neighbors, and relatives all said so. We also treated it as a suicide. Her mother, as you said, was killed by her own ability. That drove her to a mental breakdown."
I felt a pang of regret.
Without that as a mitigating circumstance, Shen Wangshu might not have used her ability so recklessly, and she might not have attracted anyone's attention. If she'd recovered from the grief of losing her mother—or at least not had the people around her look at her that way—perhaps her death would have been investigated more thoroughly, and the truth